In Bed With My Sobriety

The first time I had sex while sober was in the studio apartment of a Ph.D. student with a fixed-gear bicycle hanging over his double bed. I’d quit drinking two years prior, at 35, and so much of my life had come back to me — but not sex. The Ph.D. student was smart, and cute enough, and I had an urge like I wanted to rip an annoying Band-Aid off a patch of skin. Let’s do this. The sex was fine, and relatively quick, and afterward I stared at his darkened ceiling, a small firecracker of victory exploding in my chest. My future nondrinking life may be good, it may be bad, but never again would I be a sober woman who hadn’t learned to have sex without booze.